Effective teaching of students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds: a critical literature review.

The Australian Institute for School Teaching and Leadership's (AITSL's) Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, Standard 1, requires teachers to demonstrate professional knowledge as to how students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds learn. Sleeter (2011) and Macfarlane, Glynn, Cavanagh, and Bateman (2007) argue that professional learning in culturally responsive pedagogy can impact teacher effectiveness but the how to apply it into the classroom context is not clearly understood.

In Far North Queensland, Australia, schools in the last 10-15 years have been involved in the resettlement of refugees from a number of countries under the UNHCR program. Although the State education department has a long history of catering for students who have English as an additional language (EAL), professional learning in second language acquisition and working cross-culturally has been sparse and predominantly focussed on Indigenous-specific needs. Many teachers seem to have had little, if any, initial training or opportunities for sustained professional learning in culturally responsive pedagogy more broadly. Nor, it seems, is this a priority. A large body of literature around refugee resettlement (Bean et al., 2006; Pugh, Every, & Hattam, 2012; Taylor, 2008; Taylor & Sidhu, 2011) suggests that schools play a major component in the successful resettlement of refugee children. This paper presents a critical review of literature focused on critically responsive pedagogy and effective teaching of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The review identifies that personal and professional nature of culturally responsive pedagogy presents significant challenges for teacher education and ongoing professional learning and that more research is needed into how to support teachers' culturally responsive capabilities in contexts of practice.